Why plants should be at home and in the office

Basically, offices are decorated with posters, all sorts of letters and, perhaps, a statuette-holder of stationery, but you don't often see a pot with a plant on the table. At home, people are more willing to grow flowers and indoor plants, but still, not every apartment can boast of this. Meanwhile, houseplants provide many benefits to hosts, including health benefits, air purification, and even improved concentration. And these are not assumptions, but information proven by various studies.

Plants improve concentration

A study published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology found that the very presence of plants in a room increases a person's ability to retain attention.

These findings are based on the theory of attention restoration. The theory states that each person has a limited amount of energy to maintain attention. This reserve determines the time at which you put in the effort to work and concentrate on it. And gradually this time decreases.

There is another type of attention that does not need your control. It turns on, for example, when you are walking in the park. Attention spontaneously flows from the rustling leaves to the birds, follows the shadows from the branches on the paths. This attention helps you to rest and relax.

Scientists have shown that exposure to natural, natural conditions, such as the presence of plants in the workplace, helps to "reset" directed, controlled attention.

To test the effects of plants on people's attention, the researchers used a reading test in which participants had to read sentences aloud and then say the last words of each sentence.

One group of participants took the test at a table around which there were four indoor plants, another group in the same room, but without plants.

All participants performed one test first to demonstrate their ability for controlled attention, and then another similar task with minor changes to test if their ability to concentrate changed.

The results showed that the participants working in the room with the plants improved their performance on the second test, while the results for the second group remained unchanged.

Thus, plants turn on involuntary attention, you rest and increase your ability to direct attention, which is necessary for work.

Plants purify the air

Dr. Brill Wolverton, formerly at the Center for Space Research. Stennis, showed the public many of NASA's studies. He investigated the effectiveness of plants in cleaning indoor air from benzene, trichlorethylene and formaldehyde.

While working at NASA, Wolverton and a team of scientists placed popular indoor plants in closed Plexiglass rooms ranging in size from 0.44 to 0.88 m3.

They injected all three chemicals into a closed room to reach a concentration of 15 mg / L. After 24 hours, only fractions of chemicals remained in the air.

The amount of removed chemicals ranged from 10 to 70%, and the potential for leakage was only 2.8 to 10%.

After these results, the scientists repeated the test, but added 0.09 to 0.39 mg / L of benzene and trichlorethylene to the room air. Although these parameters were still far above the usual amount of chemicals in the air.

The 15 indoor plants tested purified the air with an efficiency ranging from 9.2 to 89.8%, with an average of 45.1%.

In addition, scientists have found that plant-free soil pots remove up to 20% of benzene and TCE (trichlorethylene).

Of course, few people "decorate" their room with a pot of soil, and indoor plants, in addition to the ability to cleanse the air of harmful chemicals, help to improve health and well-being in general.

Plants improve health

This conclusion was made by scientists from the University of Kansas. The researchers placed houseplants in the patient rooms of the surgery ward.

Patients in these wards asked for less pain relievers, had a calmer heart rate, and lower blood pressure. In addition, they experienced less fatigue and anxiety, and were discharged earlier than patients from wards without plants.

The same university conducted another study in which houseplants were supplied to offices. It was observed that the number of employee diseases decreased by 60%.

Another study by the Dutch Horticultural Council confirmed the health benefits of plants in the office. Houseplants were installed at the workplaces, and the health indicators of employees were monitored.

It turned out that they suffered less from fatigue, colds, headaches and coughs than workers from offices without greening.

At least some of the disappearing ailments can be explained by the fact that plants perfectly moisturize the air, mainly through the leaves.

They release 97% of the absorbed moisture, so this is a great way to humidify the air without placing basins of water around the house.

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